Darkest Minds, The-A Darkest Minds Novel, Book 1 (The Darkest Minds, #1)

by Alexandra Bracken

[inlibrisveritas]

I’ve had The Darkest Minds sitting on my Kindle since it was free on Amazon back in November, and I had totally forgotten all about it until my partner for a TBR Pal group chose it for my April read. I’m glad someone nudged me in its direction because it turned out to be a great read.

The Darkest Minds reminds me a bit of a darker, grittier version of X-Men, where instead of having someone teaching you how to use your gifts people fear you and choose to imprison you (which does happen in X-men on occasion). Ruby is one of those with gifts, and at the start of the book she is stuck in one of those imprisonment camps, where she has learned to go unnoticed as much as possible in order to survive. I really love the whole idea of powers and that instead of their being a ton of different abilities there are about 5 types that manifest, and though they are basic in ideas the characters make them seem incredibly cool. I really love the struggle Ruby has with her powers, and how instead of completely feeling at ease with them she sees it as something to avoid using. I know I personally would be ecstatic, but it’s awesome to see a character who actively fights it but has to come to terms with it eventually. Despite her willingness to stand out or use her powers Ruby is still a fighter and purely independent , and I liked that she felt confident in her ability to protect herself and others.

I fell in love with the other three main characters as well. Suzumae (Zu) with her rubber gloves and infectious personality, Liam with his upbeat and quirky conversations, and Chubs…who is basically me in book form. He’s probably my favorite in fact. I love his intelligence and his sarcasm, I’m even fond of his lack of trust in others…because I totally understand that. There was one character I hated immediately, but I won’t say his name because of the risk of spoilers. I wanted to kick him…hard…probably numerous times just to get the point across…such a creep.

The pacing of this is fairly quick and quite the page-turner, with only a few slow moments here and there to help set a scene or give the characters a bit of time to breathe and recoup. I really like the way the story is going, though oddly enough I don’t really know what the overarching story is going to be for the series, so it should be a lot of fun to continue this one.